I Can't Go

"Jeez, I hope he hurries." The doctor said to his nurse. "I don't want to miss my train."
.
"Me, too. I've got to get my kid by 5:30pm." Her answer tinged with aggravation.
.
Hearing this exchange through the bathroom door, my bladder shut down. It was a scorcher day in July 1992, I was on the 60th floor of the Woolworth Building, the world's tallest building from 1914 to 1930. My medical exam for the New York City Housing Authority hiring process was concluding with the traditional urine sample.
.
"Everything OK in there?"
.
He didn't care if everything was OK, he was telling me to get out of there, asap, so he could escape his eerie dark office. I stuck my head under the sink's spout and began drinking lots of water. Flushed the bowl a few times, and took off my shirt and pants for good luck.
.
"I hope he's not pee shy," came loud and clear through the door.
.
I couldn't believe she said it. Pressure peaking, I drank more water and opened the small window, high over the sink to let in fresh air, and started pacing the tiny bathroom in my bare feet on the checkered marble floor. The socks followed my pants.
.
"For Christ's sake, it's been twenty minutes, did he die in there?" She said, then one of them fell dramatically into a chair based on the sound I heard of a sizable ass hitting a seat.
.
I couldn't possibly drink more water, and I couldn't go. My last recourse was sticking my head directly out the window over the sink. I figured I'd rock my bare belly on the ledge, while the rarefied air hit me in the face.
.
Climbing on the sink, I got most of my upper body through the petite opening. Once I got my arms through, I leaned on my elbows and looked left and saw the beautiful Hudson River all the way up to the Bridge. Then I looked right, and screamed like a girl, "Aaaaaahhhhh!"
.
Face to face with a stone gargoyle, not a funny gargoyle, a hideous gargoyle that comes to you in a nightmare after eating Mexican food way too late. My scream made me lose my footing and I fell forward. The snug window and my chubby stomach kept me from falling all the way out. The cars below looked like toys. I saw the New York Post headline, "Boxer Shorts Suicide Dives Off Woolworth Building."
.

Hyperventilating, stuck in the window, I heard, "Hey, what the hell is going on?"
.
"Nothing, nothing..." I lied, pulled myself out of the window, got off the sink, went over to the toilet and peed like a horse. I got dressed and came out of the bathroom with the specimen cup, refused to make eye contact with my medical providers, somehow found one of their hands to pass it off, and ran out the door and down twenty flights of fire stairs before I felt the urge to pee again. Took the elevator to the lobby with my legs crossed.
.
.

Life is Good

Three day old, Ali, checking out 21 year old, Alison L. Pryor, receiving her college diploma from the school's president this past Sunday. Life is good.
.
.

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today, 80 years ago, Dad was born in Yorkville's Misericordia Hospital at 531 East 86th Street. He took his first trip to Central Park a week later in a stroller with his father. My grandmother nearly killed my grandfather for taking Dad to the park during her first nap since he was born. "Just want to show him around," my grandfather said ducking the shoe Nan aimed at his head.
.
Dad brought Rory and me down Carl Schurz and over to Central Park countless times. His parks became our parks.
.
Dad's art, paintings, sketches, miniatures and doll houses, inspired Rory and I to practice & play and make our own stuff.
.
Dad's passion for history, music and film, encouraged our curiousity and nurtured our boundless imaginations.
.
I miss him every day.

Goofy Ass Face

Christmas morning,1961, got my first real bike. Dad lined us up before my inaugural ride ~ me, with a goofy ass face with cousin, Bobby, and brother, Rory, in front of the Old Timers Tavern on York Avenue & 83rd Street.
.
Immediately after the photo, I wobbled around York and down 84th Street towards East End Avenue. Ida Bodner jumped off the curb to avoid being struck. Her sister-in-law, Irene, did an awkward but effective cha-cha move to barely escape my drunken lurch.
.
I continued down 84th Street unimpeded, enjoying the hill at the bottom, I picked up speed and crashed into the brown mailbox on the corner, went over to my left in a heap, and landed in a large pile of dog crap.
.
I walked the bike up 83rd Street to my house and presented myself to Mom for clean-up. Dad waited 20 minutes on York Avenue for my return, puzzled, he went up my grandmother's apartment, called Mom, and get the good news.
.
.

Sleeping In the Dresser

Alison enjoyed sleeping in her dresser, just like the kid in the Moon Mullins comic. Here, Alison withdraws her thumb from her mouth bidding the camera good night with her New York Giants tam on the floor.

I'm scared of ghosts, Alison the Ghost with the TV remote was frightening.

Meating Nan's Expectations

"Tommy, get my bag."
.
Oh, Christ, I thought. Slowly, I made my way through the railroad apartment looking for my grandmother's gang box. The pocketbook weighed more than my brother, Rory, and when I heaved the thing, I imagined how well Nan would do on Let's Make A Deal, easily meeting Monty Hall's challenge to draw an Indian head penny out of her bag, or an Al Smith for President 1928 pencil with Al's head on top (I still have that item).
.
I returned to the kitchen with the bag. The day before, I bought fruit and got pounded for buying the wrong bananas.
.
"These rocks will be ripe in two weeks, what were you thinking?"
.
It didn't matter, she could tell me a hundred times, I remembered nothing.
.
It was Saturday, and that meant meat shopping. Nan liked Schaller & Weber's hot dogs, Karl Ehmer's pork chops and Murray's chop meat and veal cutlets, and Murray threw in a pound of skirt steak if he was in a good mood. Schaller and Weber was always first stop, major crowd on Saturday's and no matter what, you had a long line. I wanted to play ball sometime that day, so I'd minimize the wait by getting there early.
.
"Make sure you see the guy's hands at all times. If they drop below the counter, and he comes up with franks, tell him to put them back and take the fresh ones out of the glass display."
.
I nearly had a baby watching the guys hands like he was a card cheat. It only happened once, "Mister, I don't want those franks, give me two pounds of these." I pointed to the glass, the guy gave me a dirty look and put the old franks back below the counter.
.
" Tell the guy to leave all the fat on the pork chops."
.
The Karl Ehmer guy loved me. He had zero work. I'd point out pork chops in the glass, he grabbed them and wrapped them in paper. He never picked up a knife to trim.
.
After Ehmer's, I'm walking down 85th with four pounds of meat in paper bags and all the dogs I pass are looking at me funny. In the street, a German Shepherd in mid-crap, leaped onto the curb going for the meat bag, she nearly took a chunk out of my elbow with a snap of her jaw. I walked the rest of the way carrying the bags like precious footballs in our team's last effort to score and win. There'd be no fumbles.
.
"Make sure Murray throws in the skirt steak."
.
Murray was a problem. He knew my grandparents bought lots of meat, but only bought part of their meat from him. He wanted all their business. He'd torture me and there was no way I'd bring the meat into his store, and I was too lazy to run it up the house. I'd hide it outside the shop. In the gutter, In the basket of the delivery bike, I'd throw it up on an awning, I had plenty of places but they all had potential consequences. Lots of people and animals comb the gutter for whatever, and might pick it up or eat it right there. The delivery boy could somehow get by me and take my meat for an unwanted ride. Up on the awning, pigeons could use the bags for target practice or I might not be able to find something to reach the bags to get them down.
.
"Why you so antsy?"
"Huh?"
What are you looking for?"
"Nothing."
.
I'm second on line, Murray's working alone, and he's annoyed that I keep leaving the line, and asking the lady behind me with the baby, to hold my place while I check out my hidden meat.
.
"No Franks and chops today?" Murray leans over the counter.
.
He knows. He knows everyone's meat desires.
.
"No thank you, Murray, just the chuck chop and the cutlets, please."
.
I want to get out of there. He puts my stuff in a bag and eyes me over, while I give him a nod towards the skirt steak with a pathetic look. He grudgingly wraps a chunk of steak in paper and throws it in the bag. On the way out, Murray shouts a farewell.
.
"How long was the line at Schaller & Weber's?"
.
The hair on my neck stood up, I didn't turn around and I begin looking for something to knock my bags off the Chinese Laundry's awning.
.
.

Faces I Remember

Here, are two pictures close in setting and subject but 33 years apart. My grandmother holding me in 1954, and Nan holding Alison in 1987. I'm feeling wistful about my family members, who are no longer here and will miss Alison's college graduation this coming Sunday. They loved Alison very much, I see their broad proud smiles when I close my eyes. Mom and Dad are crying, but it's all over joy.

A Sensory Delight

I know it's mid May, when I start itching to bike out to the Poor Man's Rivera, Coney Island. It's a sensory delight, if you don't see it, here comes a smell, taste, touch, sound, sometimes all at once. A living rollercoaster with many moods depending on the weather and the players who show up. You never know, and that to me, is as good as it gets.

Horn & Hardart

.
“My family was on the dole when we were young,” Mom said in the hot street.
.
“What’s that?” Rory asked me.
.
“Means you’re on a special pineapple diet,” I told him.
.

.
After getting thrown out of the cool bank for loitering, Mom pushed us down 86th Street in the stroller and told us a story. “It’s not like the old days, when I was a kid you could spend the whole day in the Horn & Hardart coin-mat with a few nickels in your pocket. Steaming coffee came out of the mouth of a brass dolphin. Best baked beans on earth. Macaroni & cheese from God. My knucklehead cousin, John, once put a nickel in a machine to get a glass of milk. Then he yelled train wreck, and showed me his open mouth full of lemon meringue pie. He was so proud of himself; he forgot to stick a glass under the milk spout. Quick thinking, he stuck his hat underneath the spout and collected the milk the hard way.” Mom rubbed the sweat off the back of her neck and said, “It’s a scorcher.”
.
.

.
.

101 Dalmations

When I was 6, Dad took me to the 86th Street RKO to see 101 Dalmations. We split a large Seven-Up and a box of Pom-Poms. I immediately loved the movie for a bunch of reasons, but two stuck. The first was the scene in the film where they all sat around and watched TV together. Dad, Mom, Rory and me did that too. Only thing we did without battling. The second impression that never left was these two dogs were terrific parents, the kids screwed up, got in all kinds of trouble but the parents hung in with them. I remember thinking, I hope Dad is watching this movie closely.







I achieved a Joe DiMaggio type streak today. 101 straight days of blog entries.
.
.

Uncle Mommy

In July 1963, our 83rd Street building sprung a gas leak. We had no cooking stove for a week.

Even though school was done, we ate out and we could eat most our meals at both sets of grandparents on York Avenue. We still got hungry at home. One afternoon...

.
“Mom, make us a grilled cheese.”
“Mom, make us a grilled cheese.”
“Mom, make us a grilled cheese.”
“Be quiet or die,” cautioned Mom.
“I’m so hungry,” Rory pleaded
“I feel weak,” I said.
“My head hurts.”
"I can’t feel my toes.”

“Your short lives are nearing their end. I’ll kill you both.”

.
After we wore her out, Mom made us grilled cheese sandwiches using her iron and ironing board. Made herself one too. They were delicious, but Dad’s dress shirts smelled like buttered toast for a long time.

.

Happy Mother's Day, Uncle Mommy! all our love, Rory & Tommy

.

Yesterday and Today

Alison's last college class was yesterday. Ali is the third Pryor to graduate college, ever. I'm listening to her DJ & spin Glenn Tilbrook and the Kinks "Good Day" on her last radio show at Dickinson College. Got me thinking, Hunter College feels like yesterday to me, well, here's my Hunter ID. My yesterday & today.

'

Good Day (written by Ray Davies)

The sky is blue but there are clouds in my head,

With big decisions looming ahead.

The sun is out but the room is so grey,

So much confusion headed my way.Get positive, try to be gay.

News of the world, tea and biscuits in bed.

The headlines said that Diana is dead.

She couldnt act much but she put on a show.

She always smiled even when she felt low.

I used to fancy her a long time ago.

So today has got to be a good day,

Today is gonna be a good day,

Today is gonna be a good day,

Good day, good day, good day.

Holes in my socks and I cant find my shoes.

Its no surprise that Im singing the blues.

So many holes in my life still to mend,

And someone just said that the worlds gonna end.

So today better be a good day,

Today is gonna be a good day,

Today has got to be a good day,

Good day, good day, good day, good day.

If we blow away the past with a bloody great blast,

Make it fast, make it fast.

So have a good day today because it could be your last,

Make it last, make it last.

Will it light up the sky?

Will it blot out the sun?

Well we've waited this long,

So it better be a good one.

Good day, good day, good day.

Yeah, its gonna be a good day.Hey baby,

if you come back home itll be a good day today.

They could drop a small atom bomb on the city today,

But if you walk through that door honey,

you know itll be a good day.

And now survival is my only aim.

I call friends and see if any remain.

Who was that girl who used to be my flame?

Id call her if I could remember her name.

So today is gonna be a good day,

Today has got to be a good day,

Today is gonna be a good day,

Good day, good day, good day, good day.

Hey Diana, Ive really got to learn to take a tip from you,

Put on my makeup and try to make the world take notice of you.

Yeah, its gonna be good day today.

.

.

Abbi & Luke, Brooklyn, Living Room

Last night, I went to the Brooklyn Blogfest.

There were terrific photographs, short films and a powerful energy and spirit throughout the event.

.

I joined a forum co-led by Abbi Crutchfield, a fiery talent and comedian (that's us in the pix, Abbi has a long reach). The group discussed the hows and whys inside their comedy and humor blogs. The best thing about the twenty gathered was the diversity of their blogs. I went away eager to check out their sites, and see what works and what stalls.

.

Tonight at The Living Room, Abbie & Luke Thayer host comedy. I've seen the show a number of times, and keep going back. It always cheers me up, kind of like the way I feel after a Losers Lounge show at Joe's Pub. There's a room in our brain that joyfully open it's doors for music & performance. Let em' in.

Abbi & Luke

Our Fifty-seventh Show
Friday, May 08, 2009
Note URL: http://www.myspace.com/livingroomcomedy
Location: Postmark Cafe
Address: 326 6th Street
City/State: Brooklyn, NY
Postal Code: 11215 Yahoo Maps Google Maps
Start: 8:00 PM
End: 9:00 PM
Harry Terjanian hosts Wil Sylvince, Dave Angelo, Ali Wong and Saara Dutton!

StndUp:Abbi

Sktch:Luke

Lost In the Louvre

I believe in reincarnation. I believe we've lived previous lives and further believe we looked exactly the same. After twelve hours of Paris museums for the second straight day, I was punchy and starting to lose it in the Louvre. I decided to go off on my own in one of the Roman galleries, where there were two hundred busts of significant Romans and find a few earlier lives lived by reincarnated famous and semi-famous people. I found three without breaking a sweat.
.
Mutt Mantle.
.
I'll bet, you don't know Mutt Mantle? And if you do, I'll bet you don't know what he looked like? I do.
.
Mutt was Mickey Mantle's father, and that meant Mutt was as important to me as my father. Mickey was God, Mutt was God's father, Whitey Ford was the Holy Ghost. I challenge you to find a photo of Mutt Mantle and not agree with me, that this bust is the Mick's Dad in an earlier life.


John Lennon with a broken nose after a fight with a Mod
Gene Hackman as Lex Luther

Last Night's Show & My Aversion to Flash Cameras

Merrill Black, Saara Dutton & Blinky Pryor ~ City writers

Frank Flaherty, Editor, New York Times City Section & Blinky

Last night, 60 people came out in the rain to say goodbye to a true friend of New York City's neighborhood spirit. Merrill Black (it was her birthday!), Saara Dutton & myself read our City stories to our friends and members of the New York Times City Section staff. We are grateful they came down to root us on, and thankful to one of NYC's Finest, Andy, who played the bagpipes with grace and style.

.

Thanks to the amazing generosity and hospitality of Joe Fischetti, owner of "17" the tavern restaurant at 17 Murray Street, everything about the evening was a success.

.

Matt Haber, thank you coming down and acknowledging the City deserved a fine send off.

.

Matt's article below, appears in this morning's New York Observer

.

.

Saying Goodbye To The Old 'City': Writers, Bagpiper, Bid Farewell to Defunct Times Section

By Matt Haber
May 5, 2009 6:31 a.m.

On the rainy evening of the fourth of May, a small group of people showed up at 17, a bar in Tribeca decorated with Frank Sinatra's mugshot and one of those talking Rodney Dangerfield statues one might find in an Archie McPhee catalog, to celebrate the life and recent death of The New York Times' 'City' section

In keeping with the thing that brought them all there, the event, planned by 'City' essayists Saara Dutton and Tommy Pryor, was a small and slightly eccentric affair.

Mr. Pryor, 55, grew up in the city and only started writing five or six years ago. In February 2008, he contributed an essay about putting his mother in a headlock as a kid and another one about infiltrating the Yankees bullpen with his father.

Ms. Dutton said she was inspired to move to New York in equal parts by the city she saw depicted on Sesame Street and in SPY Magazine as a kid growing up in Honolulu and Seattle. She moved to New York three weeks after 9/11 and went on to write a piece for 'City' about Duane Reade's shopping bags headlined Sacks and the City and a few other pieces over the years.
"Truly, as a person who always wanted to move here, it's like our section," Ms. Dutton enthused.
Of the section's ending, she said, "I think it's incredibly sad."

Mr. Pryor explained that the event was originally planned as a wake—a loving, boozy, Irish-style wake—but that "out of respect" for the section's editors, it was reframed as a toast.

(While this party wasn't organized by the paper of record, Connie Rosenblum, the editor of 'City' since 1997, told The Observer by telephone earlier in the day that she wished she could be there. "I'm sure it's gonna be wonderful," she said.)

Part of the wonderfulness involved the hiring of a bagpipe player, who kicked things off with his rendition of "Amazing Grace" and made a pretty picture in a modified NYPD uniform including kilt and spats; the small group of attendees hushed up and the rest of the room, full of after-work drinkers, didn't seem to mind the pipes or the half- dozen digital cameras whirring away.
Before he started, The Observer asked the bagpiper—who wouldn't give his name—what he thought of the event he'd been hired to perform at. "A buddy of mine was supposed to do this but he called me at noon and asked me to do this for him," he said.

Did he know what the event was all about? "No, not really," he said with the sort of thick outer borough accent Tom Wolfe once examined in his New York essay Honks and Wonks.
When a reporter explained to him that it was a tribute to a section of The New York Times that had been discontinued, the piper admitted he didn't really read the paper much. "I'm an online kinda guy," he said.

Fire Inspection

In the summer of 1958, my Aunt Barbara came over our 517 East 83rd Street apartment. She sat in the kitchen with my Mom drinking coffee. When Mom got busy, and wasn't paying attention, Barbara went to and opened the back window by the fire escape. Then she sat back down like nothing happened.

.

Within a few minutes we heard this big gruff voice, "Fire Inspector, Fire Inspector!" Mom popped out of her chair scared shitless. In came my Aunt Joan in my red fire hat with a big grin on her face.

.

Joan had gone to the roof and came down to the fourth floor on the fire escape and waited for Barbara to open the window to let her in.

.

84th Street ~ York & East End Avenue ~ 1942 & 2009

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Here are current photos of the 84th Street buildings shown in yesterday's 1942 Service Flag Dedication. Also shown, a picture of East End Avenue & 84th Street from 1945, and one more photo of the 1942 parade down 84th Street towards East End Avenue.

.

As you can see, the block's barely changed. It was and still is one of the more peaceful in the neighborhood. When I was a kid, families on the block included, Menesick, Hannah, Grundstrom, Carroll, Bodnar, Henry Stern and Walter Cronkite. Delivered the Sunday NY Times to Uncle Walter and Mayor Robert Wagner at 605 East 82nd Street. Wagner gave me a quarter, Cronkite stiffed me. You don't forget these things.

.

Yorkville Service Flag Dedication ~ 84th Street ~ 1942

On August 30, 1942, a parade winded through Yorkville and finished with a flourish on 84th Street between York & East End Avenues. The occasion was a majestic Service Flag dedication. Music was played, speeches were given. To the left, my grandmother, Ann Pryor, talks to the gathering.

.

Below, is the crowd on 84th Street. On the bottom, kids carry the flag across First Avenue at 82nd Street. My Dad, 13, is one of the kids in the back, his head is directly under the bus sign between the two older guys.

If the dedication was today, I'm sure Murt, Loftus Tavern's bartender would close with, "Consider it your patriotic duty, to get down to 17 Murray Street, this coming Monday, May 4th @ 7pm to toast the New York Times City Section with a swell reading, fine music, and free grub. I'll have no guff on the matter, or pick your window and I'll knock you through it. Have a pop, your mother approves. Get home safe."

Wobbly Nan

.
My grandmother Ryan didn't drink, but you would've thought she did. We called her Wobbly Nan. We'd be sitting on the couch, Rory, Nan and me, and all of a sudden Rory'd say, "Gang, ho!" and like that, the three of us would go over like a ton of bricks on our side, with Nan clutching us as if she expected the falling to continue.

She never believed she did this, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Only photographic evidence convinced Nan she needed ballast.
.
.